Tabletops Blog

I’m still working on responding to Sean Holland’s completed Stellar Goblin—which, by the way, is an amazingly complete and interesting creature. I’m more than willing to admit that Sean won this round, largely because I read his description of the Stellar Goblin and immediately said “Oooh, I want to throw that at a low-level party in a Pathfinder game!” Any time something makes you go “Oooh!” as ideas sprout in your brain, it’s a winner. Well done, Sean!

I will have the promised rituals for dealing with goblins in Unknown Armies soon; unfortunately this week has been quite insane (workplace drama and massive crunch time.) Once certain NDAs are no longer relevant, though, I’ll post some details about what I’ve been working on; those of you in the IT field may find it interesting.

Anyways: I did want to piece together a couple of thoughts, because I’ll also be busy this weekend playing in our occasional, recurring game of Birthright D&D. Birthright is an old AD&D setting with unique rules and a truly fascinating world; its primary conceit is that it combines the traditional adventuring character with rulership of provinces, temples and other holdings. Cerilia (the ‘material world’ of Birthright) is a dark place, and a place with extremely few magic items. Whereas the simple longsword +1 would be quickly tossed aside in settings like the Forgotten Realms, in Cerilia that same longsword +1 is a priceless family heirloom proudly guarded and wielded by the head of a noble family. There’s also the matter of one’s Bloodline—how much (if any) of the divine blood of the gods of old flows through your veins and gives you supernatural powers unlike any others found in D&D settings.

Birthright has the interesting distinction of having the most individual publications of any setting in TSR’s or WotC’s history—TSR produced a boatload of small books about individual provinces, and there are dozens and dozens of provinces across one massive continent. In short—it’s a really interesting setting that’s all too often overlooked by fans of “old school” D&D.

The game we’re playing has been pretty heavily modified from the original, however. The fine folks over at the now-defunct birthright.net managed to pull off several iterations of a 3e and 3.5e conversion with complete classes, race writeups, spell lists, feats, bloodline powers, religions, etc.—nine full chapters! However, they still largely stuck with Birthright’s impoverished mass-combat rules, which was odd and somewhat unrelated to what you could actually do in the game. Our group originally bastardized the Warhammer 40K rules for mass combat, but we’ve recently become disillusioned with those. I’m trying to push for the use of the mass combat rules found in Cry Havoc, Skip Williams’ Sword & Sorcery sourcebook (which is well-written and has some really interesting takes on fantasy mass combat. Go get it.)

Despite being able to play with our original group only once every six months or so (due to the group spreading out across several states), the Birthright game remains a favorite of ours. Cerilia, as I said above, is a dark place; the more you know about it, the more hopeless the entire world begins to feel. Elves hunt humans for sport; dark creatures bearing the blood of an ancient evil god have conquered vast stretches of territory; and the lure of political power makes treachery an ever-present threat. But because we decided to play as a single kingdom, dividing responsibilities up amongst ourselves and working for the collective good of our burgeoning nation, we’ve essentially broken out of the every-man-for-himself mindset of most of Cerilia’s rulers. As a result we’ve been quite successful (though not overly so) and interestingly, this has given us a real sense that we’re actually changing Cerilia and giving it hope for the first time. No other RPG I’ve played has ever quite given me that same sensation, and it’s remarkably powerful.

So forgive me if I don’t post much at all this weekend; my compatriots and I really do have a world to save.

“I want to go buy some gear.” Those seven words are like a cheesegrater on the eardrums of every GM. In nearly every case, your player has just said “I want to waste an hour looking through books to find things I want to buy.” This usually causes the GM to pick up a heavy rulebook and quietly ponder whose noggin to pound on (“mine or his, mine or his…”—look carefully next time you go shopping, most GMs really do this.) Of course, the other 10% is normally the equivalent of “I want to magically exchange the money I’m carrying for an item I want without any effort or interest.” Less of the GM’s time is wasted in this case, but it’s no less asinine—inherent to that statement is the assumption that if money can buy it, the player can get it. And that nothing else interesting will happen along the way.

If a character has an inventory, then shopping is something GMs will just have to deal with. Naturally, no GM likes being told “eh, you’ll just have to deal with it”, so here are six ways to turn that in-game shopping time into something fun. And by ‘fun’ I mean ‘more interesting than flipping through pages of splatbooks.’

0. But First, An Important Rule 0!

Okay. Before we go any further, you need to pay attention to this. This is Rule Zero for adding roleplaying value to your party’s shopping trips: There is no such thing as a freakin’ Wal-Mart. Sure, a modern-day RPG can get by with big-box store runs for things like duct tape and rope, but there’s no store anywhere that blithely sells everything, up to and including suitcase nukes, under one roof. If you’ve got such a store, get rid of it—now. Retcon if you must. We’ve all played in games where the lazy GM invents a magical superstore that has everything you’d ever want. All else being equal, this is incredibly boring. (To the credit of my current GM, who does this, he’s using some of the tips I describe below to make his Wal-Mart much more interesting; but you’ll have to keep reading to learn which ones.)

“Wal-Marting” generally encourages every bad behavior we’re trying to prevent and permits very few roleplaying opportunities. Everything at your fingertips with no personality and no reason that this massive economic and magical/scientific powerhouse hasn’t conquered the world yet? Embarrassingly bad. Don’t do it. Ever.

1. Specialty Shops

This is sort of the counterpoint to Rule Zero. Every business naturally has a specialty and a market it caters to. Even the big-box stores specialize; Wal-Mart sells a lot of stuff, but it all falls into the category of “household necessities” (and also NASCAR kitsch and crappy meat, but whatever.) In most RPG settings, individual sellers will specialize much more than they do in real life. Blacksmiths, gunsmiths, wizards selling scrolls, etc.—nobody makes everything and nobody has everything for sale.

What this means, of course, is that unless you’re in a very wealthy and populated area that’s got a wide variety of stores, it’s very unlikely that your players will be able to find a Holy Avenger or grenade launcher in a shop somewhere. This is not a bad thing. It’s the lesson of  The Incredibles—”When everyone’s super, then no one will be.” Having the neat stuff available to everyone cheapens all of it! Not to mention that making your players keep track of who sells what where (and maybe when—and we’ll get to ‘why’ in a moment) keeps them thinking about the world and keeps them immersed in the game.

Incidentally, a lot of games have “availability” ratings for exotic items. Those are sort of a take-it-or-leave-it thing for me—if I’m on the fence about something being available to the PCs I’ll use them, but most of the time I’ll make a quick “you can/can’t find that here” decision based on my idea of where they are. I’m especially wary of ratings you have to roll, though. Your mileage may vary, but don’t think you’re stuck using those and don’t let your players convince you to roll them if you don’t want to.

2. Make Individual Shops and Shopkeepers Memorable

This is one of those things that, when done right and with restraint, can make your game fantastic. Most GMs know to at least give most NPCs some sort of interesting quirk to differentiate them in the minds of the players; accents and speech impediments are the most common (because they’re easiest) but you occasionally get the peg-leg, eyepatch, etc.. Take that as a starting point, and expand it massively for the occasional shopkeeper you want your players to remember. Don’t worry so much about the NPC’s backstory, because players hate stories that don’t involve them; rather, make the NPC as full of life and character and uniqueness as you might make your own PC. This does two things: First, it imprints the NPC onto your characters minds—”guy with the limp” pales in comparison with “Jack the mechanic, who’s got two sons he yells at constantly and who keeps misplacing his tools, but who instantly warms up to anyone that treats him like a Good Ol’ Boy and threw in a free oil change on that account. Oh, and his dog humped the mage’s leg, and that’s now a hilarious YouTube hit.”

Naturally, the stores or stalls that such unique and fascinating individuals do their business in must also be unique. Fantasy games offer a lot of unique opportunities for this. Imagine a basement alchemist who works without light to avoid open flames, or a blacksmith whose forge is kept hot by a fire elemental, or a shop precariously balanced on a cliff’s edge or the top of a tower. Why does this livery stable have the right to do business from inside the local church’s walls when no other such shop exists—an ancestral right? a reward for a heroic deed? a corrupt priest? Be inventive and don’t be afraid to make crazy ideas work—the real world’s a strange place and you have to be stranger. And even if you don’t make the shopkeeper memorable, your players may well remember “the guy who sells potions from the blue barge at the docks.”

One caveat: The Incredibles rule applies here, too. Use this sort of character and location depth judiciously—often enough to make your players excited about the world they’re playing in and the people in it, but not so often that it becomes exhausting for you and your players to keep up with. It’s easy to burn your players out with fantastic descriptions, and constantly trying to one-up yourself will quickly lead you from “fantastic” to “utterly ridiculous”. Again, though, used correctly your players will remember these shops and tradesmen for the entire campaign—and beyond.

3. Things Happen in Stores, Too, You Know

No shopkeeper has a “No pants, no plot, no patronage” sign hanging on their door (well, okay, one of mine now does, but only because he’s a dwarf and doesn’t want to see things at head height and… well, nevermind.) Got your players out shopping in the various stores you’ve come up with? Awesome! Now they’re in a semi-public place that plenty of other people may need or want to go to. Time for things to occur!

When I was jotting this list down on my lunch break, I came up with this list of things that could happen while the players are shopping. And this is just what I thought of while eating half a sandwich:

• The PCs have a ‘chance’ encounter with the servant of a lord in need of assistance.
• The PCs are interrupted by a violent robbery that leads to a fight in a crowded shop filled with fragile goods.
• The PCs walk in to find the shopkeeper being threatened by a creditor or extortioner.
• Enemies of the PCs spring an ambush on them in a shop they know the PCs must visit when they return to town.
• The PCs enter the store to find the shopkeeper dead, and quickly find themselves framed for the crime.

Surely you can do better than what a ham sandwich and I ended up with. Start thinking.

Read it all..

Today saw the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States. The historical significance of this moment, while unprecedented, has been discussed nearly everywhere today, and it hardly falls to me to add to the clamor. Neither do the particulars of the political positions of any given president have any relevance to this blog – while my own political views are quite strong, you won’t see me lay them out here.

Instead, I wanted to try to spark some conversation about how incredibly rare this moment is, as the 43rd President quietly hands power over to the 43rd individual to hold his office (a typo, you say? Nope – Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms. Tricksy!) The very fact that this transition goes off without a hitch every four years in the United States is remarkable, to the point that despite having happened each time without incident, commentators and pundits still remind us that we ought to be grateful for it.

Most players of roleplaying games live in very stable nations. Tabletop games are sometimes seen as an escape from troubles, but they’re a leisure activity that really don’t have a place in nations with severe political instability. As such, most GMs tend to forget how common unrest is on the death of a king, or even after a nominally fair election. Even the presence of an heir is often no protection against those willing to seize the opportunity presented; and custom may require that the heir be affirmed by some other body (religious or political) – a body that can often be swayed by bribes, threats or the mere appearance of readiness to lead.

GMs wishing to deal with a problematic succession need to read a bit of history. In the United States, European history is sometimes taught as the be-all and end-all of history up until the discovery of the “New World”, but an astute GM should also look elsewhere. Japanese history, especially in the 16th century, is a set of well-documented coups and seizures of power; the saga of the various Chinese dynasties is equally fascinating. While you certainly shouldn’t try to make things too complicated, borrowing the complexities of succession for when your players end up in such a crisis can add a lot of realism, as well as providing opportunities for players to actively change the balance of power in the afflicted desmense and feel influential.